South Africa’s 84-page Application to the International Court of Justice demanding measures be taken to prevent the State of Israel from committing acts of genocide, is explosive in its contents. The recounting of the depths of the devastation visited upon Gaza is heart-rending.
But perhaps the most shocking part is the documentation of statements made by Israeli leaders calling for the destruction of Gaza and considering Palestinians as less than human.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fight against Hamas after Oct. 7 represented “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle,” and a “war between sons of light and sons of darkness.”
In late October and in a Nov. 3 letter to Israeli soldiers, Netanyahu had referred to the biblical story of the destruction of Amalek by the Israelites. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our holy Bible. And we do remember,” Netanyahu had said.
A reminder of the reference, from 1 Samuel 15:3—"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
